Philanthropy Index Falls to Lowest Level In Five Years as Charities Hit Down Year {Wall St. Journal}

The reasons for the pessimism range from the stock-market slump and increased unemployment to compassion fatigue and skepticism about some charities' operations..."Many fund-raisers are having to work harder to raise the same amount of money as last year," says Eugene Tempel, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. The center's "philanthropic giving index," modeled on the consumer confidence index and based on responses from about 150 fund-raisers, fell to its lowest level in the survey's five-year history.(my emphasis)

It is amazing to read this, having helped raise over $51 Million Dollars directly, and roughly 210MM since September 11th 2001 for our fund. Interestingly enough, the article does not blame the September 11th charities for syphoning funds away. I'm glad it doesn't say that.

When I woke up this morning, I was mad at the weatherman for "crying wolf" again. They keep predicting huge snows, and we get small amounts. But after a brief pause in the 8-10am time, the snow started in earnest. We went to visit friends in the mid-day, and by the time we got back, there was at least 8 inches of good packing snow covering a layer of ice from mid-morning rain.

This picture is what it looks like at 8:00pm.

One of my neighbor's guests locked himself out of the car in the middle of the street, which forced me to park sideways in my spot. (Please ignore the corona effect of the streetlight on the drop of water on my window, there was no way I was going back outside to take this shot. ) I hope this guy gets his car (which is still running) out of the street so the plow can come and plow me into my spot :-)